An experimental study on the characteristics of wind-driven surface water film flows by using a multi-transducer ultrasonic pulse-echo technique

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the characteristics of surface water film flows driven by boundary layer winds over a test plate in order to elucidate the underlying physics pertinent to dynamic water runback processes over ice accreting surfaces of aircraft wings. A multi-transducer ultrasonic pulse-echo (MTUPE) technique was developed and applied to achieve non-intrusive measurements of water film thickness as a function of time and space to quantify the transient behaviors of wind-driven surface water film flows. The effects of key controlling parameters, including freestream velocity of the airflow and flow rate of the water film, on the dynamics of the surface water runback process were examined in great details based on the quantitative MTUPE measurements. While the thickness of the wind-driven surface water film was found to decrease rapidly with the increasing airflow velocity, various surface wave structures were also found to be generated at the air/water interface as the surface water runs back. The evolution of the surface wave structures, in the terms of wave shape, frequency and propagation velocity of the surface waves, and instability modes (i.e., well-organized 2-D waves vs. 3-D complex irregular waves), was found to change significantly as the airflow velocity increases. Such temporally synchronized and spatially resolved measurements are believed to be very helpful to elucidate the underlying physics for improved understanding of the dynamics of water runback process pertinent to aircraft icing phenomena. Published by AIP Publishing.